A Day of Unexpected Surprises

These are rather politely known as the "West End Lane Public Conveniences" -- in other words, restrooms -- and believe it or not, they're a historic landmark.  They're about a five-minute walk from our flat on the high street in West Hampstead. They date from the Victorian era and according to the historic listing, they "are attractive, with colourful tiled interiors and handsome railings at street level." They are also "notably intact, having surviving basins, doors, ventilation grills and signage and there has been no vandalism or neglect."

I have never been inside these restrooms -- in fact, I'm not sure they're consistently open to the public, given that there's a modern public toilet cubicle right behind them (you can kind of see it behind the tree). But the description sounds intriguing: "The interior walls are lined with cream glazed bricks with a red glazed brick course at dado height and the floors have black and red tiles laid in a chequerwork pattern. The ladies' WC has three cubicles, each with an original wooden door and an ornate metal ventilation grille above. Two original toilet bowls survive and one original lock. An arched opening opposite leads to the washbasins, also original. The space is ventilated through openings high in the walls with ornate metal grills. The gentlemen's lavatory was not inspected but is known to have the same tiled interior, cubicles and wash room section as the ladies', in addition to a row of urinals."

One of these days I'll try to see inside. I only discovered they were historic when I was photographing local monuments for Wikipedia, and they came up on the list. Who knew?!

Yesterday was super-busy, with all the kids wanting to swap out the books they'd read over October break. We had a ton of checkouts and a ton of returns, and in between I had to help repair the laminator, which one of the teachers jammed. We removed about a dozen screws before we could get the thing apart and finally retrieve a sheet of melted plastic, which had become accordioned inside the casing. It was a freakin' mess but it seems to be working again. As I told my boss, "Bet you didn't expect to spend half an hour on that today!"

When Dave and I got home we found that Olga had had an accident in the house, which never happens. It has literally been years. She evidently wasn't feeling well -- maybe drank too much pond water on the Heath! She seems fine now, but I spent another hour or so meticulously cleaning the carpet in the dining room. (We have acres of wooden floors, but she had to have her accident in the one carpeted room in the house.) I'm a little concerned about her new dog-walking schedule, because Kim comes about an hour and a half later than Francisco used to, but I really think in this case she was merely unwell.

Oh, and I checked with the supervisor of elections in Florida, and not only was my ballot received but it has been counted. So for me, voting is officially done. Whew!